


May We Dance

by race-jackson (Race_Jackson23)



Series: Sunshine With A Little Bit Of Hurricane [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Age of Ultron Rewrite, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awesome Jane Foster, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Captain America: Civil War Rewrite, Circular Narrative, Darcy Has Powers, Darcy Lewis & Tony Stark Friendship, Darcy Lewis is the fandom bicycle and I love it, Darcy Lewis-centric, End is Beginning, Fluff and Angst, Human Experimentation, Hydra experiments, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kidnapping, Multi, Origin Story, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Jane Foster, Protective Thor, Super Soldier Serum, Thor Is Not Stupid, Thor Is a Good Bro, Will tag more as I write more - Freeform, Wish Fulfillment, super soldier darcy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-01-22 07:00:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12475984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Race_Jackson23/pseuds/race-jackson
Summary: When HYDRA pulls the rug out from under you, it's best to unleash hell upon them as a very pointed "FUCK YOU". At least, this is what Darcy's done, and it's worked out pretty well for her. If only she could figure out what the hell HYDRA wants with her in the first place.A story about families of blood, and of choice; of finding your way in the world, and powering through despite the shit thrown at you.





	1. The End

 

 

> _"Though we tremble before uncertain futures_
> 
> _may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength_
> 
> _may we dance in the face of our fears."_ - [Gloria Anzaldúa](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/180474-though-we-tremble-before-uncertain-futures-may-we-meet-illness)

**Now: Date Unknown, Location Unknown **

_Darcy Lewis_

_Wham!_

The sound of Darcy’s ribs cracking as fist meets chest echoes in her ears, dazing her enough that she fails to realise she is airborne until her back slams against roughly-hewn rock. Air leaves her with a whoosh, and the tang of copper fills her mouth. Lungs burning, throat tightening, she reels. Her foggy brain is shouting at her body, _screaming_ , unable to move but _needing_ to, because to stop is to die and _she isn’t done yet_.

Someone screams in the background, a wordless cry that reverberates against shield and rock and body. Agony, hot as a poker and twice as sharp, rents the air with its wail, and something, dancing out of reach like the fairies of her childhood, tells Darcy that it was for her. That that pain is _because_ of her.

Out of the corner of her darkening vision, a figure flitters into view, pace swift and graceful yet no less violently forceful than if he were stalking a mark. With a practiced strike, he catches her attacker, towering over her and fist raised to finish her, off guard, causing him to stumble away. But what would have shattered a normal man’s skull only leaves her attacker stunned for a moment, and he quickly recovers to bat away the steely fist, stepping into that deadly dance of blows that she had just lost.

Too dazed to know anything but fear – fear for herself, fear for Bucky – she lays there. Heart beating a tattoo into her chest, head throbbing. Pain makes her unable to keep up with the back and forth of the brawlers yet unable to turn her head to look away, her neck twinging sharply when she tries. In truth, she would not be capable of looking away, though, even if she could move; the pain did not stop her from feeling worry gnawing away at her soul, from needing to know the fight’s end.

Her body has other plans. As she lays there, shock giving way to a bone-deep cold, black spots dance in her line of sight, expanding and consuming the bleak image of their demise. Consuming the bodies – _Natasha, Hulk, Groot, Vision, Steve_ , **_SamSamSAMNOSAM_** – the blood, the metal, until nothing is left but blackness.

She enters it gladly.


	2. And So It Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy wakes up in pain after having escaped HYDRA. Having been missing for over two months, she finds out that the shady intelligence organisation, S.H.I.E.L.D., responsible for funding her boss/best friend Jane, has imploded at Captain America’s behest, and that the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have taken it upon themselves to root out HYDRA. In the course of this task, a surprise visit from Captain America and Iron Man leaves everyone with questions. 
> 
> Namely: why is HYDRA so interested in Darcy Lewis?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Just wanted to say sorry for taking so long to post this! I thought it would be up much sooner, but I had exams and apparently, I overestimated my time management skills, so here this is, months later than expected. Also just want to warn, this chapter is really dark, as per usual, and there are several moments where implied/referenced past torture is brought up, so be aware of that. I in no way condone the use of torture - I'm vehemently against it - and hopefully, as the story goes on, I'll convey that. I'm hoping my involvement of the big and beautiful softie Thor is enough to offset that, but seriously, though, fair warning: here there be demons. 
> 
> (Not actual demons. The brain kind.)
> 
> So yeah, enjoy!

**Then: The Year 2014, Avengers Tower**

_ Darcy Lewis _

Everything _hurt_.

This was Darcy’s first realisation as her consciousness swum to the surface and her brain kicked into gear, the second being that it was loud. Everything hurt and everything was loud. Loud and _bright_ , far brighter than she could comprehend. _Really fucking bright_. It made her cringe behind her eyelids as the white light pierced her brain through her eyeballs, radiating throughout her entire body. It hurt. Head to toe. Everything hurt.

Her face was completely numb and felt _stretched_ , as if the skin was tugged so tight over her cheekbones that it cracked, yet she could feel her lips curling into a grimace of displeasure that could hardly convey the amount of pain she was in. As the expression pulled at her mouth and cheeks, something shuffled off to her right side, like a book closing or someone sitting up in a chair, and she flinched, recoiling away as something shook loose in her head.

_Whirring shackles clasped down on her arms, pinning her in place. She struggled against them, pitiful sounds escaping her ajar mouth as he hovered over her, his displeasure evident in the curl of his lip._

_“Please calm down, Miss Lewis. Or is it Levin? My superiors were unclear on– please do quiet down._ _Your fear – while understandable – is quite unnecessary. Distracting, even. You wouldn’t want to distract us as we work, would you?”_

_Sobs raked their way up her throat, bruising–_

The pressure on her throat grew stronger. With a jolt, she came to, only to realise that something foreign was _pressing down on the back of her throat and shecouldn’tbreatheohg–_

Darcy gagged around the blockage. The gagging only made things worse, shifting _whatever it was_ in her throat so that it rubbed at the dried out nerves until they were raw and stinging.  Shooting upwards, she clawed at her face, hoping to dislodge the _thing_ , but it was no use. Suddenly, hands were gripping her forearms and pulling them away, and with limbs as heavy as Darcy’s were, resistance was impossible. Someone above her – the person holding her down? – was shouting, although it was too much for her muddled brain to string the sounds into understandable words. The shouting was just so _loud_ , overly loud, and made her head scream in agony as it shot through her head like a bullet.

_HYDRA_ , a voice inside her head screamed. It had to be HYDRA. She’d thought that she – but no. Her escape was a dream, then, something she’d concocted with her fried imagination to help herself cope. She’d never left them. She’d ever escaped her nightmare or destroyed the ones that had destroyed her. They’d stopped her – they’d _won_.

The thought had her struggling. It made everything worse. More shouting. More hands holding her down. One voice frantically babbling about choking while another barked orders. An awful gargling sound met her ears, and it took her a moment to register from the scraping in her throat that it was her. Her chest constricted, but her throat burnt every time she tried to breathe. She couldn’t _breathe_. And then–

It stopped hurting. Instead, she felt like her body was floating through a cloud, rising higher and higher as the pain faded away. She still couldn’t breathe, but it stopped worrying her. _At least they had the decency to drug her before they took her apart again,_ she mused distantly.

“Darcy!” the frantic voice called. “Darcy, I’m sorry!”

In the midst of the floating, Darcy managed to crack an eye open. A woman, teary and wan, leant over her, her straight brown hair falling in Darcy’s face. She looked familiar, despite the tears, dangerously familiar, and her face nagged at Darcy’s memory.

_Jane_ , thought Darcy, and then the darkness consumed her.

~

While she floated in the darkness, Darcy dreamed. Colours, jewel-like and bubbly, danced across her vision, sharpening to give way to people and objects before hazing again in turn. Vaguely, she knew she should try to remember the things she was seeing, try to commit the people and the things they said to memory, but her head felt sluggish, her eyes tired, and every time she tried to recall anything it just floated away with the images. After a while, the urgency left her too, until she could only feel the vaguest sense of alarm.

The first time Darcy truly woke up for any length of time, the tube they’d shoved down her throat was gone and her head was much clearer. That didn’t stop her from hyperventilating when the white coats loomed over her, or from trying to fight them off with her aching limbs as they tried to take vitals, though, and it was only Jane and Thor bursting through the door that prevented a full-blown panic attack.

Jane shooed away all the doctors, practically spitting venom as she forced them out the door, while Thor strode to Darcy’s side and manoeuvred himself into the guest chair conveniently set by Darcy’s bedside. He perched gingerly on the edge of it, looking far too broad to sit back comfortably lest the spindly chair snap under his weight, and took her hand, squeezing it with a gentleness that seemed out of place on the hulking Norse god.

He met her gaze with sorrowful blue eyes as he said softly, “Darcy.” His usually booming voice was softer than she had ever heard it, for which her still-throbbing head was thankful. “Darcy, I am so sorry, my friend.”

Tears filled her eyes as Darcy told herself not to cry. She shook her head, trying to both clear it and tell Thor that he had nothing to apologise for, but the movement pulled at her throat and made her shudder. Thor seemed to understand, wincing sympathetically and rubbing soothing circles into her hand. That, more than anything, just made her want to physically tell him that everything was ok, yet the words found themselves stuck in her desert of a mouth.

Completely devoid of saliva, Darcy felt like a rat died in her mouth and hadn’t yet been cleared out. It added an extra dimension of suck to the whole ‘my-body-aches-all-over’ thing she had going on, and she wanted nothing more than to wash her mouth out to get rid of the taste and to help her out with the talking thing. As if sensing her dilemma, Jane hurried over, pulling a bottle of water out of her handbag, giving Darcy an encouraging nod as she took a sip. Swallowing stung, but her mouth was less death-like almost immediately.

“Thank you,” she murmured, regretting it almost instantly as her throat flared up again. She took another sip and gave Jane a small smile that tugged painfully at her sensitive lips.

Jane smiled back, but it was more of a grimace than anything positive. “Don’t talk,” she said, gripping Darcy’s free hand. “Let your body heal, you’ve been through enough.”

Darcy flinched, a full-bodied thing that made her groan as she bothered injuries she hadn’t even realised she had.

“Sorry, sorry,” said Jane, her grimace more pronounced. She bit her lip and continued. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it now – and you shouldn’t have to until you’re ready! – but Steve and Tony are going to want to ask you about… about what happened.”

Sensing Darcy’s confusion, Jane went on, “They were the ones that rescued you. Well, Steve was, with Agent Romanoff and their friend Sam. They were a bit worried that bringing in the Iron Man suit might make HYDRA panic and kill their hostages, so Stark coordinated. He was the one that figured out HYDRA was the one that had you and not some human trafficking ring in Eastern Europe.

“They said they’ll wait until you’re feeling better before they come asking questions, but,” Jane paused, “they _do_ have questions. What they found at the base… They need to know what they’re dealing with.”

Thor and Jane exchanged a look. Darcy just felt cold as she bit her lip and nodded in agreement, trying to avoid looking at either of them. The thought of telling _anyone_ about what HYDRA had done made her feel sick to her stomach but Jane was right. They needed to know what they were up against, especially if some of the others who weren’t as nice as her turned up at some point. She flinched again as Jane touched her cheek, concern etched into the lines of her face, and Darcy realised she had been biting her lip so hard as to draw blood.

“OK,” she whispered, ignoring the twinge in her throat and the images that rose to mind with it. But a thought occurred to her, and she frowned, looking down at her hands in Thor and Jane’s on top of her sheets. “How long?”

“How long ‘til they come and talk to you?” Jane questioned. “I’m not sure, depends on how you’re feeling.” When Darcy shook her head, Jane made a small oh sound, her face falling. “ _Oh, Darcy_. I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry that it took us so long to find you.”

“How long?” Darcy repeated huskily.

Thor gave her hand a squeeze. “You were with the foe known as HYDRA for two and a half months,” he told her, “although it has only been the last few days that we have been aware of HYDRA’s role in your taking.”

_Two and a half months._

The tears gathered in her eyes started to drip down her cheeks and she sniffed, breathing out shakily in an attempt to steady herself. She knew, when she was in the facility, that it had been a long time, but she hadn’t realised how long. Time was a foreign concept at the time, measured only through intermittent feeding and doctors’ visits, and the drugged haze she had spent most of her time in hadn’t helped. Two months, though, two months just … just stolen from her; two months of her life that she would never get back or be able to ever forget for as long as she lived.

It was hard to come to terms with.

“My dear Darcy,” said Thor. His words shook her out of her melancholy, disrupting the agony tearing at her heart, if not for a short while. He gave her a warm smile. “I have missed you greatly. If you approve, it would be a comfort to hug you.”

That was when she lost it. She gave a small laugh that turned into a sob, nodding her head as Thor wrapped her up in a warm bear hug.

How to describe Thor’s hugs? Softer than one would expect from a Norse god, they were like being wrapped up in a blanket in December, socks on your feet and hot chocolate in hand. They were happy smiles and drinks with friends after a long week at work. They were happy and warm and made her feel as though she would never be hurt again.

But Jane’s hugs were better. Jane was her sister in all but name, her rock, the Arthur to her Lancelot. Where she went, Darcy followed. And so, as Darcy was transferred into the smaller woman’s arms, she finally felt at home.

~

In the week between Darcy waking up and meeting the Avengers for the first time, Jane and Thor did their best to catch her up to speed. She found out that she was no longer in Romania or wherever it was HYDRA had kept her, but the good ol’ US of A, at Avengers Tower in New York to be precise. Since being rescued by Captain Rogers – _the_ Captain Rogers, as in Captain America himself – she had been recovering in their medical ward under the strict eye of the brilliant Dr Helen Cho, and making a lot of progress, according to Jane.

“Tony Stark invited us here too,” explained Jane, brushing a stray hair out of her face. “Gave me a job, as well. Y’know, because of the whole S.H.I.E.L.D. thing.” She mimed an explosion with her hands, making a _k-bshhh_ sound as she did so.

And wasn’t that a shocker? That S.H.I.E.L.D., the pesky, iPod-stealing, science-disrupting, jack-booted thugs, had turned out to be hiding actual Nazis in their ranks in the form of HYDRA, and so Captain America had no choice but to burn it to the ground. All their agents had scattered, either having killed each other, been arrested or fled to other government agencies in the ensuing chaos of the world intelligence agency imploding. In addition to that, all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secrets (and HYDRA’s secrets, by extension) found themselves uploaded to the internet, courtesy of the ‘Lady Natasha’, which revealed the true depth of HYDRA’s infestation and the levels they’d gone to for the purposes of maintaining power.

“It’s how we found you,” Jane said quietly. “Tony had JARVIS combing the data for any Avengers mention, and since you were one of the first to meet Thor, you made the cut.” Her eyes filled with tears, and her grip on Darcy’s hand tightened. “If it weren’t for Tony, I don’t know how we would have found you. Heimdall couldn’t see you, so we had to go on what we knew, which was _nothing_ , and S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t helping us and it made me _so_ mad although it makes sense now, and Thor and I were just hounding police station after police station and talking to INTERPOL at one stage–”

Darcy had cut her off with a hug, uncomfortably aware of the sobs rattling Jane’s tiny frame. Over Jane’s shoulder, Thor sent her what he _probably_ thought was a soft smile but appeared more as if he were smelling Erik’s vile homemade “remedies”. That look spoke volumes as to the panic and the confusion her kidnapping and subsequent disappearance caused, but it was only later, as Jane toddled away with the babbled excuse of food, that she was able to ask Thor what Jane had meant about Heimdall.

Looking uncomfortable, he answered, “I asked Heimdall to look for you, and yet he was unable to see you.” Thor shifted in his seat, avoiding her gaze as he appeared to think over his response. Finally, he explained, “At times, his gaze has failed, but it does not do so often. My brother … he had the gift to shield himself from Heimdall, and no doubt others do as well. But to shield one for so long … only the Norns have such power.”

“The Norns?” she asked, feeling her breath shorten.

His response struck a sense of foreboding deep into her chest and left her even more uneasy, though she wasn’t sure why. What he was saying felt … right, somehow, it _resonated_ with her even though she didn’t understand it. Perhaps it was the vibe she’d gotten from Thor, whose brows furrowed deeper and whose grimace became an all-out frown, or even just her fear talking.

_Or maybe it’s because someone has told you this before_ , a voice at the back of her head taunted, and she swallowed uncomfortably.

Electric blue eyes met slate grey ones.

“The Norns are those that weave the fate of the worlds,” said Thor gravely. “It is said that they tend to the roots of Yggdrasill with water from the Well of Urðr, and appear at the birth of a child to decide their fate.”

Darcy’s breath hitched.

“It means,” he continued, a grim set to his jaw as he watched her face fall even further, “that your taking was fated to be.”

At that point, Darcy realised that there was a wetness dripping down her cheek. Exhaling sharply in annoyance at herself, she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand, which Thor caught and clasped gently between his much larger ones. It warmed her, the fact that this larger than life, actual _god_ was willing to take time to comfort her, especially when he probably had better things to do, like barbeque monsters with his lightning powers.

“No, Lady Darcy,” Thor rumbled, and it occurred to Darcy that she’d said that last thing out loud. As Thor shook his head, Darcy felt her cheeks pink. “No. You are a dear friend to me and your health is of paramount concern, as is the health of all my friends on Midgard. I would see you well before attending to other matters.”

The urge to sob became unbearable as the Norse god enfolded her into his arms, holding her tightly and hushing the strangled keening coming from her throat. Dazedly, she felt him climbing clumsily onto the hospital bed next to her, only jostling her slightly as he did so, and a moment later, to her surprise, another warm body burrowed into her other side and latched on, limpet-like.

“Jane,” she hiccupped, clutching at a handful of her friend’s shirt. She let out a bitter bark of laughter, then took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. “I’m sorry, guys, I’m a mess. I can’t seem to stop _crying_.”

Jane hummed, and Thor’s grip on her grew tighter as the god rumbled, “That is OK, Lady Darcy. You may cry all you want and we shall still be here for you.”

And so she had, for almost a whole week. The last time she’d cried that much had been just after the apartment fire, when her dad had– and nope, she was _not_ going to think about that when she was already crying, it was a recipe for disaster. That time was still worse, of course, but it was truly made worse for having no one to cry with. Thor and Jane kept Thor’s word and barely left her side the entire time, and she eventually had to send them away because they were suffocating her and she needed space to clear her head and figure stuff out.

Their protectiveness had given her little time to take things in and process it, but she adjusted quickly. Her days in the med ward left her familiar with her little room – five feet by five feet, with an attached bathroom suite that she wasn’t cleared to use by herself, a massive bed ten times more comfortable that any other hospital bed she had ever used and a state-of-the-art television that accessed all the channels Darcy knew and about one hundred she didn’t – and her doctors, to the point that she and Helen were on a first name basis. Helen hadn’t seen fit to discharge her to Jane and Thor’s rooms yet, saying that she was far too weak to be without medical assistance, and Darcy, for once in her life, hadn’t argued, although she foresaw a time in the future where the boredom far outweighed the pain that she’d complain non-stop until Helen let her out to save her own sanity. Until then, Darcy would chill and take advantage of the free drugs and TV and chance to relax.

Or that was the plan, until Tony Stark and Steve Rogers entered her room like a whirlwind of sleepless nights and bad news. Thor was out procuring coffee for Jane, and Jane only gave Darcy a look that told her she’d kick out the Avengers in a second if Darcy gave her the say-so before leaving Darcy to their mercy and slipping out of the room.

“Miss Lewis,” said the Captain.

He was in slacks and a button-up, not the uniform, which initially threw her off because she had been expecting the red-white-and-blue and not grandpa chic. The only way she recognised him was because of his patriotic jawline and Dorito-like shoulder-to-waist ratio.  Stark, the super-stylish multi-billionaire who had been on Darcy’s TV screens since she’d immigrated to the US, was, by contrast, immediately recognisable even in jeans and a ratty tee.

They both exchanged significant looks before the Captain settled at her feet and Stark flopped into Jane’s recently vacated seat, getting up and standing by Rogers when he shot him a dark look of reprimand. Rogers cleared his throat, nodding again at Darcy.

“Ma’am, we just have a few questions for you, if that’s alright,” he said, studiously ignoring at his side mouthing ‘Ma’am’. When Darcy nodded, the Captain continued. “I know this will be hard for you, but we need you to think back. Did HYDRA have any reason for taking you?”

Darcy’s mouth went dry, and she cleared her throat, saying croakily, “They were asking about Jane and her research. They wanted to know how to make an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, and what the Convergence was, and so on. I’m just the intern, I don’t know anything about the science other than how to turn on and calibrate the machines when Jane tells me to.”

Rogers nodded but a muscle in his jaw twitched subtly. It made Darcy shift uncomfortably and knot her hands in the sheets, gripping them tightly. In that moment, she wished she was wearing something other than a backless hospital gown. She needed her layers and layers of clothes and her kickass boots and the confidence she got from both to weather the hell that the conversation was already wrecking on her nervous system. Memories of HYDRA warred in her brain, and it took a few deep breaths and a lot of internal chanting to beat them away to the point where she could stand the look in Rogers’ eye.

Stark seemed to notice her internal freakout, though, because patted Rogers bodily on the chest before retaking the seat he’d abandoned and giving Darcy a friendly smile.

“Hi.” The only way to describe how he had greeted her was _chirped_ , and it threw Darcy right off. “Boy Scout’s just a bit tense, spent the last few weeks having the shit beaten out of him by Nazis, you know how it is.”

Rogers’s whispered “ _Stark!_ ” was drowned out by Darcy’s unexpected peals of laughter. Stark’s jaw dropped in surprise and, if anything, it made her laugh harder and louder than she had before. The stunned look on his face was just hilarious, and the alarm that passed between him and Rogers at her laughter was even more so. She found herself laughing so hard that tears dripped down her face as it began to border on hysteria.

“I didn’t think it was that funny,” commented Stark, eyeing her worriedly.

Her laughter bubbled down into giggles as she told him honestly, “It wasn’t really, it’s just … you’re not wearing the kiddie gloves, it’s refreshing.” She wiped the tears away, plastering a rueful smile across her face. “I mean, I know I basically cry at the drop of a hat, but everyone keeps treating me like I’m made out of glass.”

“Well,” said Stark, “I promise not to treat you like glass. You can hold me to that. Steve here keeps telling me that I have all the tact of a raging bull in a china shop, which is … rude but a fair assessment.”

Rogers looked like he was trying very hard to stay serious and not smile, but the twitching of his lips gave him away. He inched closer to Stark, pausing as he briefly rested a hand on the older – _younger?_ – man’s shoulder, and turned to face Darcy, contrition playing at his mouth.

“I’m sorry, I might have come across as a bit harsh,” he apologised. He bit his bottom lip briefly before rearranging his features into a sure mask. “But HYDRA … we need to stop them, and anything you can tell us will be very helpful.”

“I’m not sure how much help I can be,” frowned Darcy. She wasn’t lying, per se, because she truly didn’t know how helpful what she knew would be, but even though she had agreed to talk to the Avengers about her captivity, she was loath to relive it. “They kept me drugged most of the time when they were … _doing_ _things_.”

Nodding, Rogers’ eyes darted quickly to Stark before returning to her face.

“Miss Lewis–”

“Darcy.”

“ _Darcy_ ,” he said, a smile curling at the corner of his lips. “We have evidence to suggest that HYDRA’s interest to you isn’t what we first theorised.”

The dry mouth was back again, as was that deeply uncomfortable feeling in her chest that she’d felt when Thor spoke of the Norns. Looking between both men, who looked suddenly quite grim, she couldn’t help but want to burrow under her sheets and hide. Instead, she asked, in a voice that felt so unlike herself, so timid, that she was almost taken aback, “What do you mean?”

It was Stark who answered her. He looked her straight on, his eyes crinkling at the corners in sympathy, and he reached out to squeeze her head where it was still curled into the sheets. He paused, appearing to steel himself as he squeezed her hand again, and then he opened his mouth.

“HYDRA was watching you long before you ever met Jane Foster. They’ve been planning this for almost a decade.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, let me know what you're thinking! Again, sorry for how dark that was, but it does pick up in tone from here (I think, the plan is that it picks up in tone). It will still be pretty angsty at times - like, Darcy was kidnapped and experimented on, there's gonna be some Angst - but I'm really thinking of this as more of a superhero origin story that features _some_ dark moments. 
> 
> Obviously, Darcy's dealing with some pretty overwhelming emotions and she's very upset, seeing as she's been kidnapped and experimented on for two months, so this is how she's coping at the moment. For me, I think letting it out and relying on her friends the way she is doing is a really healthy and positive way to express herself about how she's feeling, but if you have any issues with how I'm portraying the characters, just let me know. I'm all about them positive relationships, though, so this fic will have a lot of communication (whether positive or negative) between the characters and the Team as Family!trope will feature heavily.
> 
> Will it be updated regularly? Hnngg, not on a regular schedule, but I'm out of uni for like three months so I now have time to dedicate to this. I think it will be finished by February next year, but I'm terrible with time management, so we'll see. Feel free to comment, I can guarantee that will motivate me, but if you wanna chat, I'm @race-jackson on Tumblr. 
> 
> Thanks!


	3. Unawares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two weeks ago, JARVIS pinged with Avengers-related information gathered in Natasha’s SHIELDRA dump, uncovering surprising details about whereabouts of one Darcy Katherine Lewis, Jane Foster’s intern, as well as raising questions as to HYDRA’s intentions with her. With the startling revelation that she had been on HYDRA’s watch list for almost a decade, Darcy struggles to answer Captain America’s questions and finds herself questioning the circumstances of her father’s death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh, it's been a while! Thanks for the response, it's been lovely. Enjoy!

** Then: Two Weeks Previous, Avengers Tower **

_Fingers fumbled at his tie. Hot lips found the pulse at his throat, sucking,_ biting _, as the tie was torn from his neck. He gasped, and those lips found themselves on his own, swallowing down any noise that came from him until he found himself bereft of their touch. Opening his eyes – and when had he closed them? At the kiss? The embrace? – he levelled a lustful expression at his lover._

_Blue eyes met brown, and–_

“Sir, forgive me for disturbing you but I believe this may be of interest.”

_Son of a–_

Tony groaned, slowly peeling his cheek from the glass of his work desk and wiping the drool from the corner of his mouth. With a grimace of regret, he straightened up. Already, the memory of his all-too-pleasant dream was fading away with the last of his sleepy state, and he knew that returning to it was a lost cause.

With bleary eyes, Tony watched J.A.R.V.I.S. flick several lines of text onto the glass so quickly that he could feel his brain melting from the strain of keeping up. He shook his head to clear it, gesturing as he did so for J.A.R.V.I.S. to slow down, and the lines blurred into a recognisable script that he read through quickly while ignoring the throbbing at the top of his skull.

It had been five days since Steve Rogers brought down the terrorist organisation that was SHIELDRA. Tony hadn’t managed to catch a break since, too busy trying to remove the classified files on the Avengers that had managed to find themselves publicly available for the Average Joe to download. The amount of data Romanoff had dropped was vast, far too unmanageable for a one-person team to handle, even when that ‘person’ was J.A.R.V.I.S., so Tony had had to personally get down and dirty with it to wrest the information away and into a semi-understandable state. Working non-stop, the pair had managed to pull most of the Avengers-related files from the ’net in the first two days, but J.A.R.V.I.S. kept coming across more info every hour that they’d missed in the initial sweep. There was just too much data and not enough trusted hands to deal with it.

And so Tony had been working non-stop on helping J.A.R.V.I.S. collect and collate the data from the drop. At first, he’d hoped it wouldn’t take much more than a few hours to bury to the best of his ability what S.H.I.E.L.D. had on him and the other Avengers, seeing as he had an idea what to look for from the hack in 2012. He’d stupidly thought that sorting the files would be a minimal effort compared to finding them, but as the hours dragged on and more data surfaced about _him_ that he’d been unaware of, the dread started to seep in. The sheer volume of files that had been hidden from J.A.R.V.I.S.’s hack was both astonishing and terrifying, and the realisation that it would take him weeks, if not months, to corral the utter mess that was SHIELDRA’s files made him even queasier.

But that queasiness was nothing compared to the queasiness that stirred for what J.A.R.V.I.S. had woken him for.

“J.A.R.V.I.S., is this …? What _is_ this?”

Tony was gaping at the desk, almost unable to believe what was before him. **_Lewis, D – CLASSIFIED_** the file on top had read, and the name had rung a bell. The further he delved into it, the more it became evident _why_. The details of a successful op in Bucharest, the pictures of a young brunette that had been taken from afar – it reminded him of a frantic phone call with a certain astrophysicist and her slab of Asgardian beefcake.

“That is HYDRA’s file on a Miss Darcy Lewis,” confirmed J.A.R.V.I.S.

“Foster’s assistant?”

“Yes, Sir,” the A.I. replied. “As you can see, Sir, it is extensive. I took the liberty of assembling all mentions of Miss Lewis and associated identities into the one folder for ease of access.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “‘Associated identities?’ She’s shady?”

“That is unclear, Sir,” said J.A.R.V.I.S. Tony huffed, rubbing his palms over his eyes briefly before returning to the documents. His stomach churned unpleasantly as J.A.R.V.I.S. continued, “I have only been able to positively identify two other names belonging to Miss Lewis, one of which predates her disappearance in Bucharest while the other surfaces afterwards. It is uncertain at this point whether HYDRA assigned the latter to her, or whether this was a previous identity that they became aware of.”

“Shit,” Tony breathed, flicking to the next page. There were pictures accompanying that one, disturbing ones that looked more like a corpse than the smiling woman Foster had shown him. The eyes, at least, looked to belong to a dead person, all flat and lifeless in the clinical light. “ _Shit_.”

Too late to be of help, J.A.R.V.I.S. told him, “The material is quite disturbing.”

“You don’t say,” said Tony drily.

He kept flicking through the document, bile rising in his throat until it became too much and he emptied his stomach into the nearest trash can. For all that he purged himself of the last night’s dinner, the images, the horrific words, remained, seared into his brain where the remnants of his dream had been. He doubted they would fade away anytime soon.

“Jay,” he moaned, bitterness on his tongue. He swallowed reflexively. “Is she alive?”

“While I cannot determine her state currently,” said Jarvis, something of a sympathetic tone to his voice, “as of the last upload, Miss Lewis was alive.”

Tony bit back the “ _How?_ ” on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he wiped at the corner of his mouth with a grease-stained cloth he’d shoved into his pocket before the entire debacle with Rogers dropping the helicarriers out of the sky had gone down and returned the files, ignoring the unpleasant roiling it caused. Skimming the lines with practised ease, the horror growing in his chest all the while, he searched the last uploaded file for any hint of a location, only to come up empty-handed.

“Find out the last location if you can, but in the meantime, try to call through to Cap,” Tony said finally. For what felt like the thousandth time, he rubbed his eyes, mind racing out of control as he continued. “I have a feeling he’ll want to know about this.”

“Certainly, Sir.”

~

**Then: The Year 2014, Avengers Tower**

There was a stunned silence, and then–

“What do you _mean_ HYDRA was planning this for a decade?!”

Stark winced, avoiding Darcy’s demanding gaze as it drilled holes into his skull. Beside him, Rogers shifted. Only his fingers tapping rapidly on his pant leg gave away his unease. Neither seemed willing to look at her, all too busy exchanging some sort of meaningful but wordless argument, and that only made the foreboding in her chest deepen. Suddenly, breathing had become much harder.

If it wasn’t about Jane, then why had HYDRA taken her? They had definitely asked questions about Jane and her research when she had first been taken, she had the physical scars to prove it – white spidery lines that arched over her arms and belly, angry red lacerations curving down her back. When she’d failed to answer, they’d beaten the marks into the expanse of her skin with an unpredictable brutality, uncaring of the mess they’d left behind. From that, she’d always assumed that HYDRA had relegated her to research on a ‘want-not, waste-not’ basis, but if Stark was right, it had to go deeper. It meant that they had another reason for kidnapping her.

It wasn’t possible. It also didn’t make any sense whatsoever. Why would HYDRA take her? She was a nobody, some random orphan who’d managed to be in the right place at the right time when Thor came to Earth. She wasn’t even a scientist! If HYDRA wanted someone for their experiments, why choose a mouthy, physically unfit, basically unemployed girl in her twenties? Surely there were other people better suited to the experiments?

She said as much to the two Avengers.

“We know,” Stark replied, that worried frown still playing on his brow. “It doesn’t make sense. That’s why we’re here, talking to you, to see if you have any idea why they might come after you.”

A thought occurred to her – a memory of a sandy-haired man in a suit dropping her off at St. Agnes’ and telling her to call him if she was ever in any trouble – but while odd, it was so faded in her mind’s eye that she brushed it off. She shook her head and the men both sighed. As Stark gave her a quick smile, Rogers crossed the room and dragged over her other guest chair to sit down next to Stark.

“Nothing?” questioned Rogers. “Nothing at all that isn’t related to Jane? How about revenge?”

“What d’you mean?” asked Darcy, uncertainty colouring her tone. “Like have I pissed anyone off?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, “or if someone in your family might have, like your parents or siblings?”

She let out a humourless chuckle. “Well, I don’t think that’s my problem,” she said. At Rogers’ questioning look, she elaborated. “I don’t have any. Both my parents are dead.”

The tightness around his eyes loosened slightly. He looked quite apologetic, grimacing with chagrin as he inclined his head to her.

“I’m sorry,” Rogers said.

She waved him off.

“It’s ok,” she smiled, “you’ve probably had a lot on your mind, what with saving the world from HYDRA and everything.”

“It was in the file,” he said, shaking his head and avoiding her gaze as he continued, “but I thought maybe … you might know if there was more to it.”

“More to it?” she asked. She raised an eyebrow. Folding her arms over her chest, she prompted, “What do you mean, _more to it_?” Stark and Rogers exchanged another one of their meaningful looks, and that was it. Darcy had had enough. “OK, you need to tell me, now, what you think is going on because this is just _freaking_ – _me_ – _out_!”

Raising his hands placatingly, Rogers shot Stark another quick look before turning to Darcy with a pained smile as he commented, “The information on your father, and his death, in particular, was … lacking.”

That breathing thing from before? It had become much, _much_ worse.

“He’s dead,” she said shortly, ignoring the buzzing in her ears. “There’s not much more to it. There was a fire and he died and now all I have is Jane.”

Rogers searched her face. His eyes, sky blue shot with greens and golds, were impossible to avoid. They were piercing, unwavering, and every second she remained under them, she felt as if her soul was under intense scrutiny. If she thought she could avoid him by looking at Stark, she was sorely mistaken, for he was worse somehow, his poorly-concealed sympathy sitting badly in her stomach. At least with Rogers, the sympathy seemed to be limited.

And then Rogers dropped his gaze, and with it, the tension she hadn’t even noticed building in the room dissipated. She breathed out shakily, clenching her hands into fists so that the two men wouldn’t notice her hands trembling, and she seemed to be in luck on that count or at least lucky enough that neither would mention it. Both appeared to be avoiding looking at her, at any rate, and seemed quite uncomfortable.

Resting his hands on his knees as he stood up, Rogers remarked, “Well, it was a long shot.”

“Yeah,” agreed Stark, “but it was worth checking it out. Thanks, Lewis. You let Jay know when you’re ready to leave this depressing pit and we’ll set you up with a place.”

Startled somewhat by the turn of events, she mouthed ‘Jay?’ to Stark’s retreating back, but the billionaire was already out of the door. Rogers, who had lingered slightly, caught her confusion with a soft grin that made him look ten years younger before following Stark out of the room and closing the door behind him.

Darcy reclined back into her pillows, mind still racing. She felt stupid. It had been over a decade since her dad’s death, and yet, even the smallest mention of it threw her for a loop.  Maybe it was the fact she hadn’t spoken about it for years, or even that she only felt vaguely comfortable discussing it with Jane, but hearing Captain America mention it reduced her crying impulses to that of a particularly colicky baby. All she wanted to do was curl into a ball and bawl her eyes out.

 _Pull it together, Darcy_ , she scolded herself. After all, she had more pressing issues to focus on than her long-dead father, like the fact that she had been recently _kidnapped_ and _experimented on_ by a _Nazi organisation_. If she focused on anything other than that, she wasn’t sure how she’d cope. But that didn’t stop her from wondering…

The questions Stark and Rogers had asked were questions she had mused on from time to time. Perhaps not the kidnapping questions, certainly, but whether there was _more_ to her father than she knew. Considering how private he had been, it was likely, although how much more she couldn’t know.

 “ _I don’t know, Steve_.”

She froze. Muffled by her hair nonetheless, the two Avengers’ conversation on that very topic had carried to her room from somewhere outside her door. Then, thinking quickly to herself, she tucked her dark locks behind her ear and sat forward, curious yet apprehensive all the same. The two continued, unaware that they had acquired an eavesdropper.

“ _Look, I get that you’re wary, I do. There’s some sketchy stuff going on with her background, and when she’s better, we’ll ask more about it. But I honestly think she’s telling the truth. She doesn’t know anything about her dad_.”

Guilt tightened her throat. Clothes rustled as one of them shifted their weight.

“ _Tony, you didn’t see the look on her face. We hit a nerve_.”

“ _Yeah, the dead parent nerve. So she doesn’t want to talk about her dead father. Who does? I certainly don’t, and I didn’t even like my dad_.”

A soft sigh.

“ _Tony, that wasn’t the dead parent nerve. That was the_ I-know-something-off-about-my-dead-parent-but-I-don’t-want-to-admit-it-because-it’s-something-awful _nerve_.”

Someone snorted. Darcy was glad one of them found it funny because she just found it stress-inducing.

“ _I thought the recent showdown with SHIELDRA might have you somewhat paranoid, but I didn’t think it would be so bad that you see_ Darcy Lewis, Intern, _as a threat_.”

The voices had started to grow more distant and Darcy had to strain to hear them.

“ _Have you_ forgotten _what Cho said about her bloodwork? And what_ you _found in her HYDRA file?_ ”

Sudden footsteps covered over the fading voices, and Darcy was startled by the door to her room swinging open to reveal one of her nurses. The nurse gave her a smile, retrieving the tablet from the end of her bed and tapping away at the tablet while he checked her vitals. By the time he was finished and backing out of the room, though, the two Avengers had already gone and taken their conversation with them.

~

** Then: 12 Days Previous, Avengers Tower **

Steve was giving him the disapproving look again. It was hardly fair. After all, even if Tony had exaggerated slightly the link between Barnes and Lewis, her kidnapping was still on HYDRA. While finding her might not lead them to Barnes, finding her was still an important ‘fuck you’ to HYDRA, and with everything Tony knew of Steve, he thought the big guy would be into that.

“Oh, come on, Winghead,” Tony groaned. “Look, I’m sorry you got the wrong impression but honestly, it was the quickest way to get you here.”

“You told me you had a lead on Bucky,” Steve said impassively. He arched a perfect blond eyebrow and Tony couldn’t help himself from being a teeny bit jealous. “This–” he held up the StarkTab “–isn’t a lead on Bucky.”

Tony paused. “Hmmm … no,” he admitted. Steve’s eyebrows rose further up his forehead. “But! _But_. It could turn _into_ a lead.”

Steve threw his hands up in exasperation, almost dropping the StarkTab as he did so. Wincing, Tony took it from him and starting scrolling through the file until he reached what he was looking for. A different tack, it seemed, was necessary, so he shoved the tablet back into Steve’s hands and continued.

“Look at what they’re doing to her. Human experimentation, the super-soldier enhancements – it’s all the same as what they did to Barnes. We might be able to find out more about what they did to him but if not, at least we’ll be taking out a HYDRA base and saving an innocent woman at the same time.”

But Steve, it seemed, had changed tack too.

“Why are you so intent about this?” he demanded, the corner of his mouth ticking in displeasure.

“Because they’re experimenting on her, Rogers,” snapped Tony, unable to keep the offence out of his tone, “or is that not reason enough to go and get her?”

“You _know_ that’s not what I mean. Of course we’re going to get her,” Steve bit back. He folded his arms over his chest. “Why are you so emotionally invested in this, Tony? You don’t even know her.”

Tony hesitated. He wasn’t really sure why he’d been so affected by Lewis’ file – well, no, that was a lie. He knew why. But telling Steve that? That was _not_ happening. Instead, he went for something that was true, if not exactly why he felt so attached to Lewis.

“She’s one of ours,” he said. “She’s Foster’s family and she’s important to Thor, so she’s one of ours.”

He looked up at Steve. The bigger man had an odd look on his face, caught between annoyed and soft, but like most of his expressions, it was quite an attractive look for him.

“Ok. Let’s go get her.”

~

**Then: The Year 2014, Avengers Tower**

“Darcy, are you alright in there?”

Sniffling, Darcy ran the tap. As she flicked water on her face to cool down, the door handle jangled. She reached for the closest hand towel as another knock resounded through the bathroom.

“Darcy?”

“Coming,” she called back.

Hunching over the sink, she looked at herself in the mirror for the first time since she’d been kidnapped. Even a week after her rescue, she looked terrible. Her dark hear hung in lank chunks. Circles almost as dark as her hair were imprinted into the skin underneath her eyes, and her skin itself was the bone white of chalk and looked twice as brittle. Her eyes, though, were red from the recent encounter with Stark and Rogers.

With a final deep breath, she pulled away from the counter and opened the bathroom door. Jane was on the other side, an uncharacteristically soft expression gracing her face, and she waited only a moment before pulling the older woman into a hug. Patting her hair, Jane drew her even closer.

“It’s ok,” she murmured. “Let’s get you back to bed, ok?”

Both Jane and Darcy were too absorbed with getting Darcy back into bed to notice, but if either had been a little more observant in their surroundings, they would have noticed the spidery cracks running in the marble where Darcy’s hands had been. If Jane had, she might have been more prepared for what came next. If Darcy had, she would have told Jane straight away and the whole mess could have been avoided.

As it was, neither noticed, so they were caught completely unawares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been busier than I thought I'd be and this chapter has been pissing me off. Not to mention, my Valkyrie story has been super interesting to me of late, so I've probably put a lot of the time I thought I'd be putting into this into that work. Its been helping me work through my anger about the new Star Wars film. Sorry about that.
> 
> Anyway, lemme know what you liked or hated. I'm not particularly happy with all of it, but I've edited and overedited and this is, as usual, as good as it gets. Might go over it later and smooth it over, so keep an eye out. 
> 
> I'm also looking for a beta reader right now. I'm finding that the editing takes up a lot of my time but also that my friends are too busy to ask to look at it. If you're interested, please message me on @race-jackson on Tumblr. Unfortunately, I'm not able to pay anyone at this point, so it would be purely a fun thing. Anyway, hit me up!


	4. Adrift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite being cleared to work with Jane in her new lab, Darcy struggles to adjust to life within the confines of Avengers Tower. Feeling useless, she contemplates her future while the consequences of her kidnapping start to come to light. Meanwhile, Steve’s search for Bucky Barnes meets inquiries into Darcy’s kidnapping in a strange way. Why was Darcy Lewis slated for the Winter Soldier program in 2005?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, long time no see! My fault, my fault, life has started to become hard but I won't waste your time so details in the endnotes. Before you start, I'd just like to acknowledge my betas, the lovely rachelladytietjens and glitteringsammy with their super helpful feedback, and extra kudos to chocolategate for getting me through this mammoth of a chapter. It would be much worse without them! Thanks guys!

**Rome**

As they stood before the smoking remains of their latest lead, Sam Wilson couldn’t help but wonder if the universe would get tired of screwing them over anytime soon. With all evidence pointing to the contrary, he was starting to get a little tired.

It was the fourth HYDRA base they’d hit since the debacle in D.C., and the third they’d found in such a state. Natasha had called in the lead from a contact in Moscow the night before. Under the impression that the base on the outskirts of Rome had links to the Winter Soldier Program and may yet still have associated intel, they mobilized a team consisting of Steve, Sam and Steve’s Avenger buddy Clint to hit the base. Unwilling to waste a moment longer than he needed to, for the chance that HYDRA would abandon it was too great, Steve had pushed to go the second the quinjet was prepped and ready.

Despite record timing, by the time they’d gotten there, the building was nothing but charred brick and burning support beams. Unlike most HYDRA bases they’d come across, this one was above ground, completely in plain sight as it burnt down. Most of the flames had died out, though enough lingered that even Clint was hesitant to enter the building, and ash hung around the place in a dark cloud. The only sign that the base had once been active was the full parking lot around the back of the building, as well as the bodies littered at the sentry posts.

“Shit,” breathed Sam.

It was a pretty accurate descriptor, in his opinion.

There was nothing to do but wait for the flames to die down before they inspected the base themselves. Ever the marksman, Clint decided to run recon on the grounds while Steve insisted on calling the destruction in. Sam stayed with him, and together they tried to get through to home base. The patchy signal made for a bad connection, so it took them a few minutes to connect, but when they did, they quickly relayed everything to the command centre consisting of Tony Stark and Maria Hill.

Fond of Maria since taking down HYDRA in D.C., with Stark it was a different story. He was helpful with the resources and backup, sure, and Steve sure as hell had a crush a mile high on the guy, but he got on Sam’s nerves almost without effort. Peacocking around like he did, it was a wonder Sam had been able to bite his tongue for so long. Then again, Sam was in the guy’s presence so little that he hardly had time to interact with him.

That cockiness was absent from the video feed, though. Admittedly, Sam didn’t know Stark well, but even through the monitor, it was clear to see that he was clenching his jaw with worry as he reclined back into his swivel chair. For someone who never stopped speaking, his silence spoke volumes.

Finally, he sat forward and asked, face uncharacteristically serious, “Do you know who took out the base?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam caught Steve shrugging.

“Could be anyone,” he replied. “Barton’s checking out the perimeter to see if there is anything we missed in our initial sweep, but we won’t know more until we can get in the building.”

“Does it look like a self-destruct job?” Hill suggested as she leant back in her own seat. Fury’s former second-in-command looked particularly grim. “Could Romanoff’s contact have tipped them off?”

Sam and Steve exchanged looks.

While it was a distinct possibility, Sam had a different culprit in mind, and Steve knew it. A culprit who they knew had been in mainland Europe as of last sighting, who had the means and motive for such an attack. And it wasn’t the first time a lead of theirs had been blown to kingdom come before they arrived, which made him believe that that person had ears on them. He had floated the idea two destroyed bases ago when a lead from a different contact had turned out the same as the Roman one.

But talking about that over video chat? That was never a good idea, no matter how encrypted it was, and especially not when they were probably bugged.

“Could be HYDRA,” Sam said instead. “We’ll let you know when we know more.”

Stark nodded sharply. As they signed off with hasty goodbyes, Clint came into view, jogging up to the quinjet and gesturing the two over. Exchanging another look, Steve strode off to meet him. Sam followed behind at a more sedate pace, mind whirring away as worry lines carved themselves into his forehead.

“So, you were right,” said Clint as they reached him. He jerked his head to the side to indicate the base. “There _was_ a hide site up on the other side, but it was much further out than I was expecting, and whoever it was hid their tracks quite well. I only found it because I’m, well–” Clint gestured at himself “–me, but anyone else looking for it? They’d have a hard time.”

Another look passed between Sam and Steve. They’d found the same at the previous two bases, a few rocks upturned where a sniper and his gear could rest comfortably with a good view of the surrounds but concealed enough that no one from the grounds could notice it. Only Steve, with knowledge gleaned from his childhood buddy, had noticed it, though he was yet to be completely convinced of its origins.

“Was it like the pictures we showed you?” Steve questioned, turning to Clint, who was watching him with an eyebrow raised.

The archer nodded, replying, “Yeah, almost identical. There were a few differences, but, y’know, terrain, weather–” Clint shrugged “–you can explain pretty much all of it away.”

“He was here then,” murmured Sam. His gaze fixed on the still-burning building, the guilty pleasure of vindication warring with his sympathy for Steve. “He has to be bugging us. That, or he has an informant on the inside.”

Face screwed up in a pitiful grimace, Steve turned away. Sam felt for the guy. The past few years had been rough on him, what with the seventy years of accidental cryogenic sleep followed by an alien invasion and the re-emergence of his thought-to-be-vanquished enemy, only to find out that, in the meantime, his best friend had been brainwashed and tortured and experimented on for decades. Anyone would be having a hard time after that, and from what Steve shared about his friendship with Barnes, Sam knew that he’d be struggling with the idea that Barnes was keeping tabs but holding him at arm’s length.

He also knew that snapping Steve out of it was crucial for the guy’s mental health. Luckily for him, though, as he was thinking of something to say, Clint blundered in with his usual finesse, snorting loudly.

“You think that your brain-washed assassin buddy _from the 1940s_ can get past _Tony_ _Stark’s_ security system?” he exclaimed, mouth twisted mockingly. “Stark beefed it up after he found out Tash infiltrated Stark Industries. No matter how good he is, there’s no way anyone with less than three degrees in computer sciences is getting past that security system, and he’s definitely not getting past it in person.”

“How do you explain it then?” said Steve, folding his arms across his chest. He arched a blond eyebrow. “He’s at bases we plan on hitting moments before we are, he knows our moves and intercepts them, often before we–”

Steve cut himself off, going quiet. Mouth slightly agape, he looked as if he was being struck by a monster truck of a thought and it was taking his senses with it. Asshole that he was, Clint just grinned appreciatively, nodding.

“Who did Natasha say her contact was again?” Steve asked, suddenly insistent.

Sam got his meaning almost immediately, and soon he was grinning too. After all, if Steve was right, maybe the universe had stopped trying to fuck them over.

Maybe. The universe's track record wasn't very good.

~

**New York**

It was hard to think that one would be bored with going back to their old life once they’d been kidnapped, tortured and experimented on by a Nazi organisation, but one might as well tattoo “bored stupid” on Darcy Lewis’ forehead.

Being cleared had taken a week longer than expected. Treating Darcy conservatively, Cho had been hesitant to release her even then, but by then, Darcy had gotten truly restless and Cho, having worked with the Avengers for about a year, picked it up almost immediately. And so, after multiple check-ups, a session on a treadmill that she swore she’d be feeling for weeks, and a serious sit down with Cho and a nutritionist that amounted to a caution to eat more, Darcy was finally freed of the medical ward.

Cleared to go home but without a place to crash, she found herself stressing about it the night before she was released, but she needn’t have worried. Without even needing to voice her worries, by some unspoken agreement, it was decided she’d stay at Jane and Thor’s for the indeterminate future. She had moved directly into their guest room, all light grey walls and sleek lines in an apartment strong enough to withstand a nuclear attack, only to find that all her stuff was already there, courtesy of the thunder god himself.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said Jane, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. A small smile, gratefully bashful in nature, played at her mouth. “You can change it if you want, but I just thought it’d take some of the stress out of moving in if everything was already put away.”

Darcy had just shaken her head.

“It’s perfect.”

The beaming grin that lit up Jane’s face at that was one Darcy would remember until she was old and grey.

Be that as it may, and as happy as she was to be out, Darcy was as bored at Jane’s place as she was in the med ward. While Jane had made clear that she didn’t want Darcy in the lab until she felt ready, a day of sitting in Jane’s living room watching reruns of _Supernatural_ to stave off the nightmares left the younger woman sure that the lab was the best place for her. Or at least, a better place than the couch.

Perhaps bored wasn’t the best word for it, though. Sitting quietly, watching the same shows over and over again, _alone_ , just made everything worse. It had been the same in the med bay. Without Jane or Thor to distract her, her mind took advantage of the leeway to wander, replaying things, _moments_ , that lingered always on the edges of her thoughts. Men in lab coats flittered around the sides of her vision, poking and prodding with ghostly fingers, and not even _Supernatural_ could cover up the phantom screams in her ears. At night, they haunted her too, but at least then she didn’t wonder whether her long-dead father was the reason for her agony.

That was another thing. Refusing to leave her, the conversation with the Captain replayed too, his words a constant loop. Wary eyes were now burnt into the inside of her skull while the scepticism of his gaze found itself imprinted on her heart. It was infectious, that doubt, and it made her question things she’d long since dismissed and locked away in the recesses of her brain. Or forgotten, more like.

What she remembered, though...

The clenching of hands, that herald of nervousness unseen by any stranger but glaring to herself. The constant feeling of being watched, of not going anywhere without eyes pinned to her back, until it all disappeared in an apartment fire and a charred corpse. And the running – running, always running, never staying anywhere, never finding a home – all over the world, fleeing as if their lives depended on it.

But whether they did? She’d never know, and obsessing over it wouldn’t help.

So she went back to work.

“Are you sure about this?” Jane asked that night as they ate dinner.

All three of them were seated at an overly-ostentatious dining table that was clearly part of the welcoming décor. Like the table, Darcy felt out of place in Jane and Thor’s dining room, but after a year of the couple’s lovey-dovey bullshit, she’d become adept at hiding that fact.

“Yeah, boss lady,” she replied with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. The space between Jane’s eyebrows creased, and Darcy hastened to shoo it away. Dealing with an overbearing Jane was far too much to bear. “Honestly, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Jane still looked constipated. “I just don’t want you to feel _obligated_ to come back so quickly,” she said. When Darcy opened her mouth to contradict her, Jane ignored it and continued, “You’ve been kidnapped, I’m not going to get mad–”

“Jane,” Darcy said sharply, her frustration making her hands shake as she held them up.

But she didn’t stop. Thor was watching the exchange between the two of them with wide eyes that only grew bigger as Jane kept talking.

“–honestly, I’m not going to get mad, I just don’t want you to force your–”

“JANE!”

CRACK – _smash!_

The glass of the table’s surface shattered to the floor in a crystalline mess of wine and Chinese takeout. All three jumped simultaneously. Thor’s chair overbalanced and he fell off with a shriek. Hands hovering where the glass had once been, Darcy froze, chest heaving and eyes as wide as dinner plates. Jane just stared at her, mouth ajar.

There was a pause, then–

“Sir is on his way,” announced J.A.R.V.I.S.

Darcy let out a breath she didn’t realise she was holding.

“ _Shit!_ ” she moaned. “Shit, shit, oh my God, Jane, I’m so, so sorry–”

Jane shook her head, but the look in her eyes was wary. “It’s ok, Darcy,” she soothed, getting up.

Gingerly, Jane made her way around the remains of the table to tuck Darcy into her side and guide her to the nearby couch. To anyone else, the gesture would be infantilising, but the shaking in her hands died down as Jane burrowed her face in Darcy’s hair and began murmuring soft words of comfort. Unsuccessfully, Darcy tried to bite back the sob building in her chest.

“I have to go back, Jane,” she blubbered. A glass of water was shoved unceremoniously into her hands and she took it without thinking. “I have to go back. I don’t know how I’ll survive if I don’t.”

In that moment, Darcy herself couldn’t tell if she meant going back to being Jane’s intern, or going back to where HYDRA had held her captive. It hardly mattered because that was when Tony Stark, Iron Man suit half-assembled and looking like he’d spent the last week in his workshop without showering, skidded into the room.

Mouth agape in bewilderment, it was obvious that Stark was not expecting the mess that the room had devolved into: the smashed dining table, food all over the floor, a blubbering woman being comforted by a similarly teary astrophysicist and her Norse god of a boyfriend. Darcy had to admit, it was more like a scene from one of her dad’s telenovelas than one from the super elite Avengers Tower. From the expression on Stark’s face, he clearly thought so too.

“I’m just going to–” He made an aborted gesture to the door but then stopped himself, pointing at the dining table. “Why?”

And that was the night before Darcy went back to work.

~

The next day was quieter but, in retrospect, just a tad more dramatic.

The two women got up early (or earlier than Thor, at any rate) and went up to the labs after a quick breakfast. Once there, Jane had shown Darcy around the labyrinth of glass and steel that made up the R&D levels of Avengers Tower before the two settled into her own lab.

It was an expansive space. Steel benches ran along the glass walls, covered in loose sheafs of paper and boasting a number of see-through touch screens and complicated machines. With space cleared out for Darcy and already decorated with her desk adornments, the lab felt like a step up from the gas station they’d had in New Mexico, and was definitely ten times better than the one in Jane’s mother’s basement. For one, the new one’s chairs were all intact, and for two, they actually _had_ chairs.

“Shit, Stark went all out on this, didn’t he?” quipped Darcy, landing solidly in one of the swivel chairs. Picking up and examining a strange metal contraption that had been left on a nearby bench, she commented, “What, couldn’t buy your loyalty with poptarts alone?”

“He didn’t try,” Jane replied drily. With one of her famous arched eyebrows, she plucked the suddenly beeping device out of Darcy’s hands and set it back on the bench. “It might’ve been cheaper for him if he had.”

With the familiarising started, the two got down to work. True to form, Jane fussed over Darcy for as long as her attention could be diverted from science. Astonishingly, that went on for twenty minutes. But after Jane succumbed to the lure of her research, it was merely a matter of sitting quietly and transcribing notes into legible English for a few hours. The rest of Darcy’s time in the lab was predictably spent forcing Jane to eat at intermittent intervals, distracting her boss from a particularly vexatious equation that sent Darcy’s brain in circles, and shaking off the encroaching panic that snuck up on her during inopportune moments.

Darcy had been right in thinking that the lab was better than Jane’s living room, but only marginally so. She’d forgotten how boring it was to watch Jane transcend into the genius realm, and so she failed to expect the long and tedious periods of watching Jane’s possession at the hands of her calculations. Many an hour in New Mexico had been spent with the astrophysicist delving into her notes with a single-minded fervour while Darcy sat there, twiddling her thumbs like the incompetent gopher she truly was, and it was no different at Stark Tower. And as usual, the twiddling meant that her bored penchant to daydream was in full force.

Unfortunately for Darcy, that had been _exactly_ what she was trying to avoid. Yet the moment Jane was off, caught up in the whirlwind of discovery, so too was Darcy, although in another whirlwind entirely. Looking at the stats she had no chance of understanding, she found herself in the ‘what-am-I-doing-with-my-life?’ whirlwind.

Ever since she finished her degree, she had felt like she was on a high-speed train with no destination, going nowhere all too fast. The panic had abated somewhat with the continuance of her internship, subsiding in the face of Jane’s offer of family and place, but still, it lingered. Before the kidnapping, in the back of her mind, she had known she’d have to figure something out eventually because it wasn’t like she could be Jane’s intern for the rest of her life.

And Darcy hadn’t wanted to be Jane’s intern for life. For all the unexpected alien invasions, the work itself was uninteresting, tedious, and half the time she had no idea what Jane meant. Not to mention that astrophysics was so far out of her realm of interest that she had finished her degree with no experience in her actual field of qualification. She had a B.A. in political science for crying out loud and her day job amounted to glorified babysitter!

Europe was supposed to give her the way forward from her pathetic unemployed state. Having postponed the trip when Jane asked her to accompany her to Tromsø (and then having continually postponed it until she’d almost died in London), it was meant to be a burst of clarity on the ‘what-am-I-doing-with-my-life?’ front. A chance to see the world and contemplate the opportunities before her. Thanks to HYDRA, her trip had been cut short at the start, and if she felt lost before Bucharest, that was nothing compared to how she felt on that day in Jane’s lab when she finally realised how replaceable she was, how useless, and how …

… how she wasn’t sure if it mattered anymore.

“Hey.”

As if summoned by such thoughts, Jane popped up into Darcy’s line of vision. It was hard to tell if she was frowning due to the smudged line of dark whiteboard ink that had found itself on her forehead during one of Jane’s absent-minded ponderings. Knowing Jane’s recent state, though, Darcy would hazard to say she was.

“Are you alright?” Jane continued. There was that eyebrow again, raised in all its investigative glory. “You’re not usually this quiet.”

Darcy shrugged. Her hands had become more interesting all of a sudden as she replied, “I’m fine,” with a fake smile plastered across her face.

“Bullshit,” called Jane. To Darcy’s disbelief, the older woman crossed her arms over her chest, intent on staring Darcy down. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve been all distracted today, I _know_ you, Darce. Tell me what it is.”

“It’s nothing,” stressed Darcy. The eyebrow rose higher, and she relented. “It’s just … with everything that’s been happening, I just got around to realising … the whole ‘discovering myself’ thing didn’t work out so well.”

Jane eased herself onto the chair next to Darcy’s. Forehead creased thoughtfully, she bit her lip, offering, “Because of … what happened?”

“I feel _different_ ,” Darcy confirmed. With her arms folded over her chest, she felt as though she was holding herself together as she spilt her thoughts to the world. Specifically Jane, but, of course, with no other family or friends left except maybe Thor, Jane was her world. “Before I just felt lost, but now I feel … hollow.”

“Hollow?” frowned Jane. “What do you mean, ‘hollow’?”

“Like before …” She trailed off and started again. “Before, I was all worried about what I’d do, I mean, I can’t be your intern forever, right? And … and I was focused on that, about finding something that felt like ‘me’, or finding me, I don’t know, but…”

She shrugged.

“Whoever I was before HYDRA … sometimes I feel like maybe they burnt her out and I’m all that’s left.”

She was surprised when Jane reached out and, after a quick nod from Darcy, took her hands in hers, squeezing tightly. As Jane’s machines beeped with new discoveries, they sat there for a long moment, savouring their closeness.

“Now, you listen to me, and you better believe every word I say,” ordered Jane, her jaw clenched. “Whatever they did to you, it was terrible. And you’re not going to get over that anytime soon, if ever. And that’s ok, Darcy. It’s ok to not know what to do or who you are or whatever, but I’m always going to be there, ok? Because I know who you are: you’re Darcy Lewis.”

As if she could pre-empt Darcy’s answering protest, Jane shook her head and continued, “I don’t care what Tony found. I mean, I care, but if you’re not ready to tell me, I don’t care. You’re my best friend, no matter what your name is or whatever your background is, and if you need help with all of this, I’m there, no questions asked. We’ll do it together.”

In that moment, there was a lot Darcy wanted to do. She wanted to hug the ever living daylights out of Jane and tell her how much she meant to her. She wanted to promise that she’d explain it all, explain everything she knew and hold nothing back. She wanted to tell her that it was so much more than feeling hollow, that it wasn’t just her, Darcy, that they had burnt out. But she couldn’t make the words come to the forefront and hugging on those chairs would be awkward as heck, so she just smiled shakily and squeezed Jane’s hands back.

The soft smile Jane gave her told her she didn’t need to say anything, anyway. But as Jane went back to her work with another squeeze of the hands, yet the conversation left Darcy preoccupied. It had brought up another of her worries, this being one that niggled at her a lot since being rescued but particularly since her conversation with the two Avengers.

Everything was blurred for her. Only fraying edges remained where memories had once been, much to her disbelief. At first, she questioned whether her eyesight from before had affected the clarity of her memories, dulling them with the retrospectivity of her new eyes, but as she recovered and found herself reaching for moments that fluttered away from her grasp, those holes became more evident. Thinking about her dad, who she was beginning to realise she hadn’t known at all as a person distinct from herself, only made those holes more glaring, made no easier by the fact that she was unable to separate what she had never known from what she had lost.

 _Could I even try explaining that to Rogers?_ she mused as Jane jotted numbers down on the interactive board, dusting poptart crumbs off her shoulder as she went. Darcy looked down at the pen she was fidgeting with, a strange tingling in her fingers that she shook off. She returned to fidgeting. _Would he believe me, or would he think I was just trying to hide something?_

His desperation, the sheer anger she’d seen in him, while not necessarily directed at her, it was a powerful deterrent nonetheless. Thor had said before that Captain Rogers was the most level-headed of the Avengers, sans perhaps ‘Lady Natasha’, but what she’d seen the other day? That wasn’t a level-headed man. That was a man struggling to keep himself from cracking open under the pressure, and doing a bad job of it. A person in that position was far from rational.

And Stark? He made no secret of the fact that he was interested in what had happened, but Darcy also knew from Jane that he was seriously busy following up all the other leads he’d found. Telling him about the missing time would only bother him, and for what? Nothing. She’d much rather tell him when she was able to recount her story in full and not when it seemed like she was trying to hide something, although she knew it would have to be soon.

Jane though… With everything that she had left, she wanted to tell Jane. Jane, who had offered her a job even though she wasn’t that good at it and knew nothing of science. Jane, who had been so distraught by Darcy’s kidnapping that Thor said she hadn’t slept for days on end. Jane, who Darcy had _lied to for so long_ –

Her pen cracked. A light crackled from her hands. The lab went dark.

“What was that?” called Jane almost immediately. “What happened? J.A.R.V.I.S.?!”

As the emergency power kicked in, the floor of lab came alive almost immediately with a dim blue-white glow. Illuminated by the light, Jane’s panicky expression melted into sharp relief, the poor lighting exaggerating the bags under her eyes. Darcy made her way over to where Jane stood at the dead work screen, reaching for the astrophysicist's hands and clasping them gently.

“This floor is experiencing a slight energy disruption,” came a much-quieter J.A.R.V.I.S. Where Darcy had found it was difficult to pinpoint the speakers in the Tower, that time, it was evident that J.A.R.V.I.S.’s voice was coming from the corners of the room. “I am unable to isolate the source of the disruption at this time. Please remain calm as systems reboot.”

“So strange,” Jane whispered. The space between her brows was furrowed intensely, confusion evident on the planes of her face. “None of the machines should have done that.”

As Darcy stood there, gaping at Jane, she realised that her boss hadn’t seen the light – or, at the very least, she hadn’t seen it come from _her_. But Darcy had, and she’d felt it too; a strange tingling at her fingertips, a buzzing on her palms. She’d seen it as it rippled out in a ball of strange electricity.

When the systems came back online and Jane went back to work with minimal fuss, Darcy also realised that everything had gotten much more complicated than she first thought.

~

**London**

Georgia Proctor had seen some shit in her time. Growing up in the neighbourhood that she had, with the parents that she was born to and the country she was born in, she was bound to have colourful experiences. Those experiences – the awful soul-crushing nights when it seemed like the world was boiling with hate, the euphoric highs of wedding bells and babies squalling for the first time – toughened her, made her skin thick and her tolerance for bullshit low, until it seemed like she was hardly ever surprised anymore.

Until the Incident happened. And then it seemed like the universe was conspiring to shock the ever living daylights out of Georgia Proctor until she found herself in an early grave or something equally as terrible.

Aliens in her home city had shocked her. The phone call her elderly mother received from a thought-to-be-long-dead family friend – shocking. The news that her war hero uncle was still alive? That had shocked her too.

But the manila envelope left on her desk? That wasn’t shocking, although later she would realise it heralded the greatest shock she’d ever experience in her life. It was certainly surprising, though.

Aspiring to start her day early so as to attend her niece’s birthday bash that afternoon, Georgia slipped into the office a good hour before the rest of her colleagues. After packing away her lunch in the fridge, she settled at her desk, ready to dive into the depositions from the week before.

And there it sat, inconspicuously yellow and deceptively ordinary, on top of her inbox. As ordinary as it seemed, it was far too early for the mail to have arrived and been sorted into inboxes. Frowning to herself, she examined the handwriting on the front, just her name printed in careful curves that seemed all too familiar.

Brown eyes behind tortoiseshell glasses widened. Before she’d even finished the first page, before she’d even gotten the documents out the envelope, her cell phone was in hand and she was dialling a number she’d never had to dial before. A scratchy male voice answered with a hello on the third ring, and Georgia wasted no time in launching into her story.

“Captain Rogers, it’s Georgia Proctor. You told my mother she should call if Uncle James made any contact with the family.”

On the other end of the line, the man was quiet before clearing his throat and prompting, “Did he?”

“I came into my office and there was an envelope on the desk,” she said. “I don’t know for sure if it’s him, but you mentioned he was going after HYDRA bases with information on the Winter Soldier Program.”

“And it’s a file on the program?”

His voice sounded strained. While Georgia hadn’t known Steve Rogers long, she knew he was generally calm and collected, if a bit melancholy at times. She reasoned that he must have been under a lot of pressure looking for her uncle to sound so stressed.

“It’s a file on the program,” she confirmed. “But…”

Looking down at the file again, she hesitated. Dated as far back as 2005 but ranging to that year, the file’s content was about the program but the name attached to it was definitely not her uncle’s. Nevertheless, she was certain that it was his handwriting on the envelope, memorised from years of reading her uncle’s journals and letters to her mother. Evidently, it was important enough to him that she get this information, and so the information itself was triply so.

“It’s a file on a girl named Darcy Lewis,” she continued. “Does that name ring a bell?”

The girl that stared back at her from the black and white page did ring a bell, but Georgia Proctor could not, for the life of her, place her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So life's hit me like a truck. Legit the first week I asked for betas, my dog hurt herself and it's turned into this huge saga and long story short, we found out she has cancer. Pretty bummed and upset, but of course I found this out when I had 5 am starts for stocktake week _fml _.__
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> _Anyway, so I got really out of this fic's headspace, and it was a real struggle to get back into it, especially when something just didn't fit right with the fic. I had a whole plan for it, but I realised that it might be building up too quickly, so I expanded a little bit. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to go back through and update the outline so yeah, stress. It's probably going to take a while for the next chapter, not gonna lie, because uni starts back up next week (rip and lol @ thoughts that I would finish it before uni went back). But! I feel much more into it now, so I think it'll be ok, especially when I get back into the groove of uni (and also my muse strikes me when I'm supposed to be doing uni work instead)._  
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> _Anyway, lemme know what your overall impression of the fic was! What do you think is going to happen next? Are you liking Darcy so far? And what was your favourite part? Leave a comment or come chat to me on tumblr, I'm @race-jackson. Thanks for reading, and thanks again to my betas! You guys are patient legends!_  
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